Distinguished Visitor Lecture: "Rethinking 'Catholic Reformation' and 'Counter Reformation': the case of Italy"

The various labels that have been used to describe religious change and its impact on early modern Italy are of more than mere academic interest. Thanks largely to the work of Massimo Firpo, in particular his monumental editions (carried out with Dario Marcatto) of the trials of several of its illustrious victims, we are now in a position to appreciate, as never before, the fundamental role played in this process by the Roman Inquisition. In the middle decades of the sixteenth century, argues Firpo, this institution took effective control of the leadership of the Church to the extent of having elected to the papacy two of its own: Paul IV (pope, 1555-59) and Pius V (pope 1566-72). The Italian peninsula is still counting the long term costs of the effect of this extraordinary ‘coup d’eglise’  which ensured that the ‘Catholic reformation’  was a very slow and incomplete process.

Massimo Firpo is Professor of Early Modern History at the Scuola normale superiore, Pisa and at the University of Turin. He is a member of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei and is co-director of the ‘Rivista storica italiana’. He gave the Isaiah Berlin lectures in Oxford in 2006. Professor Firpo is author of numerous works on the effect of Reformation ideas on Italian art and society including, most recently: ‘Juan de Valdes and the Italian Reformation’ (2015); ‘La presa di potere dell’inquisizione romana (1550-1553)’ (2014) and ‘La Cappella sistina e la Cappella Paolina: Michelangelo tra riforma e crisi religiosa’ (2013). A new edition of ‘Il processo inquisitoriale del cardinal Giovanni Morone’ is in progress.